A lot of college football (and perhaps a bit of miscellaneous crap that I think warrants a post)

OK it took enough time but the bowl TV schedules are finally up and for people without the special college football TV packages, it’s a bit underwhelming. More games this year have shifted to the specialty packs and there seems to be no rhyme or reason for most of them. The worrisome part is TSN in all of this. Their involvement in broadcasting bowl games has diminished from last year and with Sportsnet probably showing very little college football next season, TSN is the one place many of us would expect to step up. This could be in part of their extended coverage of the World Juniors (isn’t it extended enough?) so that could be their reasoning for all this. We will find out sometime in the summer how this will all shake down.

For now, the bowl television schedule (for this schedule, SP means the specialty pack channels):

December 21, 2013

Saturday

New Mexico Bowl (Washington State vs. Colorado State)

2:00 PM

TSN2

December 21, 2013

Saturday

Las Vegas Bowl (Fresno State vs. USC)

3:30 PM

ABC

December 21, 2013

Saturday

Idaho Potato Bowl (Buffalo vs. San Diego State)

5:30 PM

TSN2

December 21, 2013

Saturday

New Orleans Bowl (Tulane vs. UL-Lafayette)

9:00 PM

TSN2

December 23, 2013

Monday

Beef O’Brady’s Bowl (East Carolina vs. Ohio)

2:00 PM

TSN2

December 24, 2013

Tuesday

Hawaii Bowl (Boise State vs. Oregon State)

8:00 PM

TSN2

December 26, 2013

Thursday

Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl (Bowling Green vs. Pittsburgh)

6:00 PM

SN360

December 26, 2013

Thursday

Poinsettia Bowl (Northern Illinois vs. Utah State)

9:30 PM

SN360

December 27, 2013

Friday

Military Bowl (Marshall vs. Maryland)

2:30 PM

TSN2

December 27, 2013

Friday

Texas Bowl (Minnesota vs. Syracuse)

6:00 PM

SP

December 27, 2013

Friday

Fight Hunger Bowl (BYU vs. Washington)

9:30 PM

SP

December 28, 2013

Saturday

Pinstripe Bowl (Notre Dame vs. Rutgers)

12:00 PM

SN360

December 28, 2013

Saturday

Belk Bowl (Cincinnati vs. North Carolina)

3:20 PM

SN360

December 28, 2013

Saturday

Russell Athletic Bowl (Louisville vs. Miami)

6:45 PM

SP

December 28, 2013

Saturday

Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (Kansas State vs. Michigan)

10:15 PM

SN360

December 30, 2013

Monday

Armed Forces Bowl (Middle Tennessee vs. Navy)

11:45 AM

SN360

December 30, 2013

Monday

Music City Bowl (Georgia Tech vs. Ole Miss)

3:15 PM

SN360

December 30, 2013

Monday

Alamo Bowl (Oregon vs. Texas)

6:45 PM

SP

December 30, 2013

Monday

Holiday Bowl (Arizona State vs. Texas Tech)

10:15 PM

SP

December 31, 2013

Tuesday

AdvoCare V100 Bowl (Arizona vs. Boston College)

12:30 PM

SN360

December 31, 2013

Tuesday

Sun Bowl (UCLA vs. Virginia Tech)

2:00 PM

CBS

December 31, 2013

Tuesday

Liberty Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Rice)

4:00 PM

SN360

December 31, 2013

Tuesday

Chick-fil-A Bowl (Duke vs. Texas A&M)

8:00 PM

SN360

January 1, 2014

Wednesday

Gator Bowl (Georgia vs. Nebraska)

12:00 PM

SN360

January 1, 2014

Wednesday

Heart of Dallas Bowl (North Texas vs. UNLV)

12:00 PM

SP

January 1, 2014

Wednesday

Capital One Bowl (South Carolina vs. Wisconsin)

1:00 PM

ABC

January 1, 2014

Wednesday

Outback Bowl (Iowa vs. LSU)

1:00 PM

TSN2

January 1, 2014

Wednesday

Rose Bowl (Michigan State vs. Stanford)

5:00 PM

TSN2

January 1, 2014

Wednesday

Fiesta Bowl (Baylor vs. UCF)

8:30 PM

TSN2

January 2, 2014

Thursday

Sugar Bowl (Alabama vs. Oklahoma)

8:30 PM

TSN2

January 3, 2014

Friday

Cotton Bowl (Oklahoma State vs. Missouri)

7:30 PM

FOX/SN1

January 3, 2014

Friday

Orange Bowl (Clemson vs. Ohio State)

8:30 PM

TSN2

January 4, 2014

Saturday

BBVA Compass Bowl (Houston vs. Vanderbilt)

1:00 PM

TSN2

January 5, 2014

Sunday

GoDaddy Bowl (Arkansas State vs. Ball State)

9:00 PM

SN360

January 6, 2014

Monday

BCS National Championship (Florida State vs. Auburn)

8:00 PM

TSN

Yes, you see it right. Six games on the specialty packs. Out of 35. Nearly 20% of the games. Not a good sign of things to come me thinks.

Some points from the schedule:

Nice to see ABC pick up the Las Vegas Bowl this year. To be honest, it would have been nice to see ABC pick up a couple more games as well but I know this was due to a time issue and ESPN’s insistence that most of the games end up on the main network (not the Deuce, not the U, and definitely not the News).

I will say it again, six games on the specialty packs. I don’t mind since I have the thing but for most others it is a pain in the ass. It becomes much worse when you see the calibre of games on there and that most people will miss (Oregon vs. Texas stands out here). Really inexcusable on the part of either Sportsnet or TSN (or both) not to include as many games as possible.

CBS only has one bowl, the Sun Bowl. And it features no SEC teams. This makes absolutely no sense. I actually long for the days when more bowls were on the main four networks (three back then). I’m not saying most of them should be on there, but more than one for CBS, two for ABC, and one for FOX (none for NBC).

Expect next year to be quite different when it comes to scheduling. I can see Sportsnet not having as many bowl games so as to not conflict with any NHL games. The Big Four won’t be showing any more games so it will be up to TSN to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, this could mean upwards of a dozen games go to the specialty pack (which with that alone, could boost the price over $100). We seem to be going backwards with college football coverage in Canada.

Finally, for people that do have the sports packs, there is some lower division football to catch as well. First, the FCS semi-finals are this weekend. Friday night at 8:00, New Hampsire travels to North Dakota State to take on the runaway freight train known as the Bison (still waiting for the news that this school will move up to the FBS…I’m sure it will happen within the next five years). Then, Saturday afternoon at 2:00, the surprising Towson Tigers travel to the northwest to face Eastern Washington. The two winners will face off January 4 for the FCS title in a game that should also be on the specialty pack. The Division III Championship is Friday night as Mount Union faces off against UW-Whitewater starting at 7:00. The next afternoon, the Division II Championship is on at Noon when Northwest Missouri State plays Lenoir-Rhyne for the title. Both of these games on the specialty pack (for those who want to watch them).

I will give my analysis of the first set of bowl games (oh I forgot…CAPITAL ONE BOWL WEEK! or whatever the hell else it’s called) just after Christmas. I hope to do analysis every couple days but we will see how busy I get with the holiday season.